Doha: North Korea on Monday denounced joint military drills by South Korea and the United States as a "dangerous provocative act." The North Korean foreign ministry accused in a statement the allies of "persistently staging the large-scale joint military exercises" despite North Korea's repeated warnings, adding the "random exercise of strength will result in aggravated security crisis." "This is a dangerous provocative act of leading the acute situation on the Korean peninsula, which may spark off a physical conflict between the two sides by means of an accidental single shot, to the extreme point," the statement said, as reported by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
According to Qatar News Agency, this year's Freedom Shield marks the allies' first major military exercise since US President Donald Trump took office in January. As part of the exercise, the two sides planned to stage 16 large-scale on-field drills, up from 10 last year, to strengthen their combined defense posture against North Korean threats and other challenges, including the regime's growing military cooperation with Russia, according to South Korea's (Yonhap) news agency.
Such joint drills also compel North Korea to become "the most thoroughgoing and more overwhelming in deterring the enemies' various" nuclear war threats against its regime, the foreign ministry also said, vowing to "redouble its responsible efforts" to maintain peace on the peninsula.
"The US should be mindful that its habitual hostile policy toward North Korea openly denying its legitimate existence and victorious advance, will only add justification to the principle of toughest anti-US counteraction ... and face the undesirable consequences," it said.
North Korea has often reacted furiously to such joint military exercises between Seoul and Washington, denouncing them as war rehearsals, despite the allies' asserting they are "defensive" in nature. Last Friday, the North warned the allies would pay a "horrible price" for their joint military exercise, a day after the drills were announced.